Claude Julien on Patrice Bergeron: ‘He may be in the next game’

CHICAGO — Claude Julien was a frustrated head coach Saturday night after he lost Game 5 of the Stanley Cup finals to the Blackhawks at United Center, 3-1, and in the process lost his best all-around player to an undisclosed injury.

Pressed about the nature of the injury suffered by Patrice Bergeron and his prognosis, Julien tried to be as clear as he could before losing some patience.

“Well, no update, and I think there’s no concern until you get an update,” Julien said. “As far as we’re concerned, he’s just getting evaluated
right now. Not much I can say on his situation.”

Asked what happened, Julien said he was not at liberty to say.

“No, not really,” Julien said. “It’s just an injury that wasn’t able to let him finish the game. He may be in next game. I’m not going there.

When asked if this was an existing injury that was aggravated, Julien reached his boiling point.

“Guys, I’m not going there, so anything else but injury here. I’ll update you when I have an update. There’s nothing more. We can ask a million questions. I don’t have any more information than probably you guys do right now.”

Carl Soderberg, tabbed to take Kaspars Daugavins spot on the fourth line, found himself centering the No. 2 line when Bergeron went out early in the second period.

“I thought we could use him, and although he had very limited experience in this league, he’s still a pretty skilled player and had a good year. I thought if we were going to give him a shot, tonight was probably a good time for it. He showed me enough to be able to move into Bergy’s spot. I thought he played well, and although there wasn’t maybe the chemistry that you see with that line usually because it’s his first time, certainly not disappointed in the way he played tonight.”

Here is the remainder of Julien postgame press briefing from Saturday night in Chicago:

Q. We saw a much better performance in the third period. Was something said after the second, but why better in the third than maybe the first two?
COACH JULIEN: I don’t have that answer. We just played better in the third. We started playing versus maybe sitting back too much, and we weren’t as good as we could have been in the first two. We were better in the third and gave ourselves a chance.

Q. What does it say about this series, you’re heading to Game 6 and maybe the best player on each team isn’t going to be able to play? We don’t know that.
COACH JULIEN: Yeah, that kind of evens itself out if that’s the case. But there’s still a lot of good players on both teams that can
certainly make things happen. But you know, it’s a challenge. I think it’s about both teams wanting it bad enough and hoping guys
step up and do the job if those guys aren’t back, and that works for both sides. And I’m sure that’s something that both coaches would like to see from their players.

Q. A couple times David Krejci didn’t take draws. You had Rich out there. Is there a reason for that? Is David okay?
COACH JULIEN: David is okay. I put two centermen almost all the time in our D zone, so that was just me continuing to coach the same way. Peverley has actually been pretty good on face-offs. You use your hot hand, especially in your own end. That’s all.

Q. Is there anything in particular you’d like to see your team do differently against their top line?
COACH JULIEN: Well, they have had two good games in a row, and the way the goals were scored, they were scored close around the net. Kane scored three goals in the last two games, and he’s very good at kind of finding those quiet areas and sliding into the right spot. That’s why he’s a good player and scores a lot of goals. We just maybe have to have a little bit more awareness around our net because both goals were scored the same way.

Q. It looked like you split Z and Seidenberg up late. How come?
COACH JULIEN: No reason, because we split them every once in a while. There was no real specific reason. Johnny was playing well, and every once in a while depending on who is on the other team’s lines, and as you know with Toews not out and stuff like that, they had some different looks at times. We just put the pairs together, pairs that have played together before.

Q. Desperation both in the third period and now going into game 6, your team has always played well facing desperate situations. Just address what kind of factor you think that’ll be going into Monday night.
COACH JULIEN: Well, it’s pretty obvious. It’s do or die. We’ve been there before, and we’ve done well in that situation. So we’ve got to,
again, win the next game. Right now our goal is to create a Game 7, and to create a Game 7 you’ve got to win game 6. So that’s our approach to it. We’ve been good at home, and we need to be good at home obviously next game. It’s as simple as that. Again, there is no panic. You’re not going to push us away that easily. We’re a committed group, and we plan on bouncing back.